She woke to sunlight.
Not the gray pre-dawn light she had woken to the last several mornings — actual sunlight, gold and unhurried, coming through the villa's windows at the angle that meant she had slept longer than usual. She lay still for a moment and took stock of herself the way she always did in the first seconds of waking — what was present, what had changed, what the body was telling her before the mind caught up.
The bed was warm.
But only on her side.
She turned.
Blaze was gone.
Not recently — the pillow beside her had lost his warmth, which meant he had been up for a while. She looked at the space where he had been and felt the specific shape of his absence. The outline of a large man who had come back in the night without announcement and wrapped his arms around her and s
